Vene

I don't know, this thread reads an awful lot like whining. Your signature says you got into multiple top universities, I don't understand why UW-Madison is such a big deal to you. I am absolutely positive that Wisconsin is interested in top international students and I am also absolutely positive they have international students in their programs. The process described here is just one of many ways to evaluate them, and yes, sorting applicants into piles of domestic versus international is an evaluation.

Again, international students are more expensive to support, an international student cannot be compared 1:1 with domestic students they have to be superior to be worth the extra cost. This is a bunch of just world fallacy whining. Nobody cares how hard you worked. What matters is what you can do. I will agree that all of these reasons are legitimate. Nobody is saying that there shouldn't be any international students, there should be, but Wisconsin does admit internationals and they will continue to admit international students. Having a preference for domestic students doesn't mean they're not going to bring in international students.

I think your conclusion doesn't quite follow, nothing here said internationals never get further review, but that they get lower priority and it's possible for there to be a sufficient number of domestic students who fill the slots. If not, then they are considered. I think the GRE comparison is apt, it's a criterion where it weeds out applicants for round one, but doesn't mean they're not going to be selected during round two.

If the program is doing that they're practically reading tea leaves. There are so many other reasons for a Stanford to reject a candidate other than that they applied to Lowrank University.

At this point why don't you ask if application fees are even ethical in the first place? Compare it to applying for a job, you should never even consider applying to a job where you have to pay a fee, even though it costs the company (or other organization) money to process and review your resume. Besides, the application was reviewed to at least some degree as when an applicant is classified as an international student they have been, strictly speaking, reviewed. What degree of review is required for it to be ethical to accept the fee?

A month? Seriously? You may have a month off between semesters, but that's not the same thing as having a month off. My program has a suggested two weeks off simply because I don't believe anybody will even be at the university. But that's a great time to get some real research done.

They don't care as long as they get the scores by the deadline.

There are US engineering degrees not ABET accredited?

Don't bother with the subject test unless a program you really want to attend requires it. Your profile should already show you know biology and you have good GRE scores. I think Dean's List is implied. You have a good profile, I think you've got a shot at top universities. You could look at other universities, especially if they match your interests better. I think a place to start is to look at so-called Public Ivys as they also have strong reputations but aren't necessarily as competitive as Harvard or Princeton.

That's the old scale. This gives a conversion between the two. So, you got a 360 Verbal and a 610-620 on Quantitative for a combined score of 970-980.

I would be seriously shocked if your AW score kept you out or even mattered at all. Besides, engineers do a different style of writing than the AW portion calls for.

Burlington is a great town from what I've experienced so far, just wish the rental market was less insane.

Go to class, knowing people is probably the most valuable thing you can do. Besides studying for the gre shouldn't take that long.

I used to live in that region of the US and have heard about weather disrupting flights to the point where so few people show up for the interview that they all are accepted. Granted, this is something I very much have heard second-hand so I can't guarantee that it's accurate.

Move on, you shouldn't be surprised that a state-funded university serves citizens first. Are you also going to complain that the US government creates grants which require those it funds be US citizens? Besides, you got into plenty of top tier programs.

@Takeruk, For the program I'm in we're actively encouraged to talk to the PIs about funding before we rotate, I would agree that you want to be certain before you commit that you do have professors who are interested in taking you for a rotation and that the culture is such that PIs want to bring in grad students to train instead of using us as a laborer. I like this a lot. Overthinking can be just as dangerous as underthinking, if not moreso.

I'd say for this one you have to consider the field. You mention you're in the humanities and this may well be true there, but I don't think that's the case in science. Most programs I've looked at have a rotation system and I honestly prefer it over being thrown into someone's lab and hoping it works out. That said, if the program doesn't do rotations and you don't have an advisor lined up then it makes more sense to run like hell. But overall I think you have good points.

Professional programs are a very different beast even if it is still a graduate degree. In many ways they really are a continuation of undergrad instead of programs designed to generate scholars.

It really shouldn't.

I'd be surprised if your GRE was too low, your quantitative score is 87th percentile after all. 160 verbal is a good score from a native English speaker, so getting it as an Indian is great. If I was you I'd also look at the results page and do some research to see if any of the universities of interest have data available as to the stats of students from previous admissions cycles. Also, do keep in mind that your GRE is probably the least important aspect of your application so don't think that because yours is good compared to their standards that it means you'll get in.

If the program in question doesn't require a GRE, then there's no trick involved, they don't need a GRE score and not having one won't hurt your admission chances.

I wasn't necessarily thinking about a job at a university, EE has a lot of options outside of the academy.

I don't think there will be a problem with getting a job in the US with a Canadian degree. We generally trust our neighbors. That being said, I don't know that there's enough of a prestige difference (and engineer may correct me) between those universities for it to be a deciding factor. Also, with U of Akron, just something to consider is that the university is fine, but there are some bad neighborhoods near campus, at least according to people I've know who have live in that city. I can say that, personally, I'd be tempted with the offer from Kansas, although I can't say that I'd want to be an Iranian living in Kansas.

Oxford, no question.

My tactic is that as long as the lab doesn't stray too far from my research interest I'm more concerned about having my personality mesh well with the PI. I don't think I'd feel comfortable having two highly competitive labs as your next rotations as the first one is turning out to be a bust. What comes to mind for me, and this is very much based on my preferences, I'd probably look at the next rotation being in a "safer" lab and if it turns out well try a riskier one for the final rotation, if it doesn't then definitely number three will be a safe lab. But, ultimately, if you need four to find the right place then you need four.